The nervous system plays a pivotal role in chiropractic theory and practice. The concepts forming the cornerstones of chiropractic, namely the "subluxation" and the "adjustment" have continually emphasized this point. Chiropractic has long held that subluxations can produce disorders of internal organs and spinal manipulation can ameliorate and/or alleviate these disorders via their effects on the nervous system.

The purpose of this project was to determine if sensory input from paraspinal tissues affects sympathetic nerve activity and thus could contribute directly to the function of an internal organ. The specific aims of this study were to determine if mechanical loading of a vertebra alters the magnitudes of, patterns of, or relationships between sympathetic nerve discharge to discrete organ systems.

Joel G. Pickar, DC, PhD This work is in progress under a grant from the Consortial Center for Chiropractic Research and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)